Of Interest

After seeing my campus message this afternoon about the defacement of the class banner in the ’82 Grill, students came forward and shared relevant information with Campus Safety. As a result, we are now confident that the “KKK” symbol was present on the banner as of last spring, and potentially earlier.

I want to thank those who reached out to communicate with CSS. They significantly aided the investigation. It does not eliminate the harmful impact of the incident. But it demonstrates the kind of community effort needed, in our continuing fight against racial hatred and other forms of bias.

3 Responses to “Update on defacement of class banner”

Unfortunately, Williams College does not have a foolproof system in place for identifying and appropriately punishing those who create unacceptable symbols that have been “weaponized” to harm others, including the letters “KKK”.

As a political scientist, I think the Falk administration would be wise to hire some of the students on campus who look like they belong to the KKK to spy on their fellow students.

Ideally, these fake KKK students will find themselves befriended by real KKK students.

The spies should identify the network of KKK sympathizers on campus. Once their investigations are complete these students should be found guilty by the administration and then made to participate in a public mock trial.

Above all, it must be stressed during these mock trials that the letters “KKK” are naturally and automatically weaponized and that their use is never funny or ironic.

JCD: That’s a great idea—we should be on a special lookout for implicit bias incidents to report:https://speakup.williams.edu/
Your best friend might be an implicit thought criminal. In fact, we should assume that they are guilty and have them prove their innocence.